Faithfully
by Commander
Summary: Commander returns with yet another annoyingly long oneshot story... this time, it's Wanda's POV of just what's going through her mind after Crocker captured her in AbraCatastrophe.


(AN: Another pointless one-shot angst/fluff story from me? Yep! And why, you ask? Because I have writer's block something fierce on _Bully!_… which is why I haven't updated it for months. I think it'll only have one more chapter, but actually WRITING that one last chapter is harder for me than admitting a mistake to my brother!

Ahem, anyway…

This is actually a story that I intended on writing a long time ago… back during the _A Fish Called Wanda _days. (By the way, I just re-read that whole story… and shuddered. That story sucks eggs. But anyway…) It's told from Wanda's POV when she gets captured by Crocker in "Abra-Catastrophe". I don't know why I never got around to it before, but I just watched my A-C DVD a few days ago and got re-inspired. So hopefully this will lift some of my writer's block in my other story… which I started what, a year ago? Pathetic, I know.

Also, from what I've heard, in the newer episodes of FOP, Cosmo and Wanda's relationship is going down the tubes. I wouldn't know, as all I seem to watch anymore are my Monty Python and Marx Brothers DVDs. But hey, if it's true, I thought I might as well give you guys some FOP fluff from the "good old days". And again, just like my story from Cosmo's POV, I've named this story after a beautiful Journey song! I apologize for the insane length of this… but I really don't want to cut any of this out. Except maybe this ridiculously long author's note.

FOP doesn't belong to me, so please don't sue me!)

I don't know how many of you have ever been in danger—and I mean _real _danger.

I'm not talking when your parents find out that you've been out hours past curfew, hanging out with the bad crowd and drinking, and you can tell by the looks on their faces that you won't be seeing the sun for a long time. Or whatever. I don't know too much about the situations that you silly humans get yourselves in—I'm learning more and more everyday, because of my job, but your species is still a mystery to me.

No, I mean life-or-death situations. Real ones. And I've had my share of them, trust me.

When someone you care about is in trouble, something else just takes over. It's like you, yourself, don't exist anymore. All that matters is your loved one, and you'll do _anything _to save them. You could put yourself into a very vulnerable situation and not even realize. Your personal safety doesn't matter anymore. You could even get killed and not realize that you had even opened up the possibility to yourself.

Trust me, I know on this one. Back during "The Massacre", as we fairies call it, when you humans slaughtered hundreds of defenseless fairies… and I arrived on the scene after they thought that they had killed them all.

I was angry…and that's the biggest understatement of the eon. Actually, words like furious, stunned, and heartbroken can't even begin to describe what I was feeling that day, what I was feeling when I confronted the murderers and kept them from escaping until Jorgen von Strangle got on the scene. I knew they had clubs—the same clubs that they had used to kill the other fairies—but it just didn't register.

And this was even before I realized that they killed my best friend, Leslie.

The sudden instincts you get when you see danger don't last very long. Once Jorgen tortured those humans in almost barbaric ways (sometimes, we fairies are just as bad as you humans), I just turned to mush.

If you've never lost someone very close to you, then you are a very fortunate soul. Because let me tell you, I can't think of a worse feeling in the entire world.

And after all that, the other fairies called me noble and gave me my crown—a sort of sign of achievement among us fairies.

Noble? I did what any of the others would have—I was pulled by something that I had no control over. It happens when you witness destruction upon people you care about. It happens when you see innocent children slaughtered.

And it happens when you love someone.

It was right after Monkey World was gone… thank God. If anyone ever throws manure in my face again, I swear I'm going to explode.

Anyway. It was a victory, to be sure, but Timmy knew that we couldn't celebrate yet. Especially when we came to realize that his insane teacher, Crocker, had the magic muffin.

And right after that, I saw it—a butterfly net, coming right towards us.

That instinct kicked in again—some other force had me push Cosmo, Timmy, and Bippy (well… he was in the way. Think what you will, but I wasn't too concerned with Bippy's safety) away from that thing. Of course, even if I could have stopped myself, I wouldn't have. Well, halfway. I don't think that the net would have had much effect on Timmy, because he's a human. But get Cosmo out of harm's way? Definitely.

Looking back on it, since Crocker wished with the magic muffin, there was probably nothing I could have done to have saved myself. And I think I somehow unconsciously realized it as I pushed them away… and slowed down.

I let that thing get me.

Now, I'm not going to lie. The "noble streak", if that's what you want to call it, was gone completely. I was terrified as I realized that I couldn't escape from that thing. But what else could I have done? At least I knew that Cosmo and Timmy were safe.

That was all that really mattered.

Crocker laughed like a maniac as he ran to his "secret" lab (Timmy seems to know all about it) and deposited me in a big scepter-like thing with a large glass ball on the top. The top closed off instantly.

"What is this thing you have me in now?" I hollered at him. Just because he captured me didn't mean that I would be submissive.

"Oh, it's a special scepter that I built for the day when I finally captured a FAIRY GOD PARENT, and I will use it to harness your FAIRY magic so that I can be the SUPREME RULER OF THE WORLD! HEH HEH HEHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!"

"And why are you telling me this?"

Crocker shrugged. "It says here in 'The Idiot's Guide to Becoming a Super Villain' that I must explain all of my gadgets and motives to anyone whom I've captured."

"Ah…"

"But let's cut the chatter, shall we, my little fairy friend?" he said, looking like the worst kind of friend I could imagine. "Let's test this scepter and use your magic!"

He grabbed the scepter and raised it above him, and I waited anxiously. Of course, I know how to use my own magic, but would he know? I didn't think he would, but…

Almost instantly, I could feel a burning pain racking through my entire body. I probably screamed. I don't remember. I'd never felt so much pain in my life. I felt like my whole body would explode.

Quite suddenly, the pain stopped, and I clutched my heart and gasped.

"Oh, poor little FAIRY GOD PARENT! Did that hurt you?"

I looked at Crocker and nearly screamed. He was wearing the most ridiculous yet powerful body-armor... apparently, what he thought a "supreme overlord" should wear. And he had used me to get it!

He started to laugh maniacally. "It worked! NOW I SHALL FINALLY BE A SUPREME DICTATOR! But first, I must rub it in the faces of my STUDENTS!"

I couldn't believe it. It was like a scene on a school playground, with one kid taunting another, "My lunch is better than yours!" And here was a schoolteacher in his forties, taunting his bewildered students.

I could feel tears well up in my eyes as he used my magic—_my _magic—to turn some of the students into ice sculptures and various bathroom plumbing. It was cruel, it was unusual… and it was coming from me.

There was just one small, happy thing—Timmy wasn't there. Wherever he and Cosmo were, it wasn't where Crocker was, and that meant that they were safe.

But then Timmy jumped in the room.

"That's enough, Crocker!" he yelled.

I tried to yell at him to run, to get away from this insane man, but Crocker seemed to have it all planned on what he was going to do to my godson. "Hey, kids, guess what I'm going to turn Turner into?"

"A fruit pie?" a girl asked.

"Toilet paper?" a boy ventured.

"All excellent suggestions!" cried Crocker. I clutched my stomach and winced, as if that was going to stop him from using my magic to turn Timmy into… who knows what.

If he did anything to Timmy, I'd die. It's only been a year, but Timmy is one of the most precious godchildren I've ever had. He's sweet, fun, and smart—despite having a short attention span—but the poor boy's been tortured by his awful baby-sitter for years. Abuse is something that no child deserves, but especially not Timmy. Especially not him. I've grown to love Timmy like he was my own child.

My own child… I clutched my stomach again.

Timmy had wisely run out of the room and down the hallway. "Oh no you don't!" hollered Crocker. "You need a hall pass for that!" He aimed his scepter down the hallway. I tried to resist with every nerve in my body, but it was useless. I had no control over my magic anymore.

Crocker stepped out the classroom and fired again. My body was on fire. Did he even know how much he was hurting me? Did he even care?

Although my eyes were squinted shut from the pain, I saw something that almost made me yell "Hallelujah!" Cosmo had turned himself into a shield, and my… _Crocker's _rays were harmlessly bouncing off of him and missing Timmy completely.

_This is good, Timmy, but RUN! Get OUT of here! _I thought desperately.

As if he heard me, he ran around the corner and out of our sight. I expected Crocker to follow them, but he surprised me.

"Oh well, I'm wasting my energy on Turner," he said. I goggled at him. "He'll be a mindless drone soon enough!" With that, he crashed his scepter—and me—into the ground.

The pain. The excruciating pain. I would never imagined that I could hurt so much. I could never explain to other fairies what it feels like to have all your magic sucked out of you to turn the entire world to a desolate ball of mud inhabited by billions of boobs with no free will. And you humans couldn't even come close to imagining it… to knowing how much a part of a fairy their magic is!

I blacked out, although, to be quite honest, I thought that I was dying. It hurt that bad.

When I came to, the whole school had transformed itself into a huge fortress, complete with Crocker banners hanging every five feet.

"What… what have you done?" I managed to ask. My vision hadn't returned yet, and my body was still racked with indescribable pain.

"Ah, you're FINALLY conscious!" yelled Crocker. "After I turned the entire planet into Crockerworld, you passed out and I wasn't able to use your magic! But I won't be using that much anymore—all at once, of course—so you'll still be conscious when I need you to—"

"No, I won't," I hissed, picking up my wand and pointing it at my head. "I'll be dead."

Crocker's eyes bulged. "YOU WOULDN'T! I FORBID IT!"

"I'm not one of your mindless drones," I snapped. "And I don't want to be the source of your insane power. If I have to kill myself to be able to stop you, then so be it."

Crocker fumed at me. "Oh, very well," he finally said, to my surprise. "When I used you to create this overlord suit, I gave it special fairy-hunting powers. I'll just use it to find me a new fairy." He grinned at me, a grin so terrible that I felt like I had just drunk sour milk. "Wasn't there another fairy with you… a little green one? Maybe I'll find that one."

"No," I whispered, shaking my head in disbelief. "You wouldn't."

"I won't have to, if you stay alive!" laughed Crocker.

I dropped my wand. He probably grinned evilly again, but I was too blinded by tears to see. I knew that as long as I stayed in there, Crocker would continue to use my magic for destruction… but if I killed myself, he'd just go and catch another fairy. He'd catch Cosmo.

I actually gave an audible cry as I imagined Cosmo and not me in that despicable scepter. Crocker would hurt him… Cosmo deserved far better than that… I winced, imagining Cosmo's pain. I couldn't put my husband through that. No, not at all.

Besides, what would it gain? Crocker would still have the same fairy magic, but I'd be dead. And so would the baby.

I looked down on my belly, thinking that our deaths might actually be a good thing… because my baby, that precious little life that was finally growing inside of me after all these thousands of years, shouldn't be born and live its entire life in a scepter of a mad dictator.

But what could I do? I hadn't told anyone else that I was pregnant—not Timmy, not even Cosmo. Our child would be the first fairy born in thousands of years, and I didn't want that kind of publicity when I was pregnant… they'd find out soon enough. And Cosmo and Timmy would just worry about me...

Worry about me? If they were still alive, if they somehow still had their free wills, they'd be worried enough about me… but there's nothing they can do! There's nothing _I _can do!

Crocker saw my defeated sorrow… and laughed at me. He was truly insane, I decided. Who else would get so much happiness from someone else's grief?

"So, little fairy, do you like the way I've changed everything into Planet Crocker?" he asked me, motioning around his "throne room".

I angrily wiped my tears from my eyes. "It's horrible! When are you going to let me go?" I yelled, before realizing that that probably wasn't on his agenda.

"Hmm…" thought Crocker. "What's today?"

I blinked. "…Tuesday."

Crocker began counting on his fingers. "Wednesday, Thursday… NEVER!" He laughed again and I slunk down against the side of the scepter. Suddenly, I heard a beeping noise.

"Fancy that!" cried Crocker. "It's time for the hourly bowing down ceremony!" He smashed his scepter into the ground, and in an instant we were transported to his balcony.

It still hurt, but by then I hardly cared anymore.

For the first time, I got to see just what my magic had turned these people into… and I didn't know whether to scream or puke. They were all on their knees, bowing down like happy idiots, to Crocker, all in the same gray suit with a big C on the front.

"Look at them bow… to me, their ruler!" cried Crocker to me. I gave him a look that I hope was disgust. "You know what this party needs?" he suddenly cried, pointing the scepter up in the air. "SHRIMP PUFFS!" ZZAAAAAAP!

I screamed again, more out of habit than anything. I didn't want to go through with this. I wanted to die. But I couldn't, because if I did, then Crocker would very likely catch Cosmo. I knew, right then, that somehow I'd be able to go through this hell everyday… just as long as Cosmo was safe. Nothing else mattered.

"I'll never bow down to you!" a voice in the crowd suddenly yelled. My heart stopped from both hope and fear as I immediately recognized the voice. Timmy was still free-thinking. And he was going to take on Crocker all by himself.

"I don't care how powerful you are," Timmy continued. I finally saw him—he was completely covered by Santa's magic bag. "You're still a second rate elementary school teacher! And shrimp puffs reek!"

Again, Crocker surprised me by turning to me calmly and asking, "Hmm… what would an angry dictator say right now?"

Hey, it was worth a shot. "Uh… I'm going to let the fairy go?" I ventured.

"NO!" Crocker hollered. "Good try though, I respect that. He'd say SILENCE!" He sent a blast towards Timmy, and I shut my eyes, hardly bearing to watch… but then the platform collapsed, and we fell to the ground! Timmy blocked the ray with his magic mirror!

Enraged, Crocker blasted at Timmy again. And again. Each time, Timmy deflected the blasts with his magic mirror. Finally, Crocker approached Timmy, completely livid.

"Aaaaaauuuuuuuuggghhhhh… WHO ARE YOU!" he roared.

Timmy pulled off the cape and looked up at Crocker from behind his Groucho Marx glasses. "I'm, uh, one of America's most beloved comedy entertainers?"

Crocker considered this. "Fine, Shemp!" he finally yelled, completely misguided. I breathed a sigh of relief. "If it's a magic fight you want, then it's a magic fight you'll get!" He swung at Timmy again. Timmy blocked again. And you know, I thought that Timmy might actually defeat Crocker…

…but Crocker broke the mirror. Timmy lay helpless on the ground, staring, terrified, at Crocker, at me. I wanted to badly to comfort him… to even just say something, but I hurt almost too much to think at this point.

"Now, my comedic little friend, I hope you enjoy life as a SHRIMP PUFF!" cackled Crocker.

I shut my eyes, preparing for the worst. I didn't want to witness Timmy's effective death…

"Excuse me!" another familiar voice suddenly rang out. Crocker spun around and… I could hardly believe my eyes. The face definitely looked like Cosmo's, and it was definitely his voice, but his upper body muscles had about tripled in size… and strength.

"Hi, Mr. Crazy Face!" my husband said, almost happily. "Meet Mr. Fairy FIST!"

And he did what I had been dearly wanting to do to Crocker this whole time—he socked him in the face. Hard. Crocker crashed on the ground and slid to a halt yards away.

I furiously stared out of the scepter, now at the front rather than the back. I didn't want to get my hopes up, but I almost thought that Cosmo and Timmy might win… that I might get out of that thing.

Crocker rubbed his head. "That fairy hit me!" he complained. His eyes lit up. "Wait! …That _fairy _hit me!"

Dammit!

"Cosmo, look out!" I barely managed to shout before Crocker shot out beam after beam at Cosmo… who just punched them away. In fact, his pecs were so massive that he was just able to… _absorb _them.

"Those are some massive pecs!" said Crocker, clearly impressed.

Oh, was I impressed, too. _And they're MY massive pecs, _I thought to myself, grinning. Somehow, somewhere, Cosmo had gotten completely buffed up… just to rescue me.

God, how I love him!

Cosmo decided that he'd had enough of the defensive side, and zoomed towards Crocker, in attack formation.

Crocker sensed how much danger he was actually in.

"Oh, poopy," he muttered.

BAM!

The fighting was intense, I rattled and crashed against the walls of the large ball I was in, but when I saw Crocker fall to the ground, I knew that all the pain had been worth it. Cosmo grabbed the scepter. He didn't even have a scratch on him.

"Cosmo!" I cried, pressing up against the side of the ball, full of love and pride. Oh boy, did I owe him one. He had gone up against an insane overlord—and won—just to free me from his clutches… what wonderful thing had I ever done to deserve such a perfect husband?… and damn, he looked good.

"Nice massive pecs," I said approvingly. Cosmo smiled, half at my compliment, and half because he knew that I was safe and that he had saved me.

"You like them? We-ell, maybe I'll watch five second massive thighs, and five second massive calves, and five second massive glutes!"

ZAAAAAAP!

Oh my God! I had forgotten to keep an eye on Crocker—and now _Cosmo _was trapped too!

"Now I have two times the fairy fun, and nobody can stop me!" howled Crocker maniacally.

"No!" I whispered, feeling pure dread mount in my stomach. What kind of horror could he unleash with _twice _the fairy magic? I glared at Cosmo.

"Cosmo, you idiot!" I yelled. "You should have been keeping Timmy safe… but now Crocker's got twice the magic that he has before, and—"

"But… but Wanda!" Cosmo blubbered. His massive pecs had vanished, and he now looked confused and terrified. "I couldn't… I couldn't let him keep hurting you! I…"

"Look what you've done!" I hollered. "Don't you understand that with two fairies instead of one, he's much more powerful?"

I probably would have yelled more, but suddenly Crocker zapped up some sort of warp thing that sucked poor Timmy—now completely alone—up and gone.

I was used to the pain, but Cosmo wasn't.

"_Gaaaaaaaahhhhh!_" he screamed, flopping helplessly against the side of the ball. My fury at him morphed into a heart-wrenching pain that immediately flooded my eyes with tears…

The one single person who I love more than anyone or anything else was being tortured. All because he wanted to save me.

I crawled over to him and pulled him to me tightly. "Look at what you've done to yourself…" I moaned.

Crocker kept chasing Timmy through the various places that the warp sent him to. I'm not going to go into detail—you can just watch the movie again to see all that, and besides, I was in too much pain—both physically and psychologically—to really pay too much attention… until Timmy's glasses fell off, and Crocker finally recognized his opponent.

"TURNER!" he yelped. "You're not Shemp! You're not even Curly Joe!"

Timmy looked at the glasses. "Uh oh. Knew I shoulda gotten those things fitted."

"I should have known!" cried Crocker. Cosmo gave a whimper of fright for Timmy, and I realized that tears were in my eyes again.

Crocker continued to glare at Timmy. "Perhaps these fairy godparents aren't powerful enough to stop you, but I know which parents are—YOUR MOM AND DAD!"

"NOOOO!" cried Timmy. He charged towards Crocker, trying to stop him, but a dead bird fell on him, halting him. Crocker opened up the warp again—Cosmo's yell of pain was dimmer now, as if he was losing his will to live—and we were sucked in. Timmy managed to lasso Crocker's leg… but Crocker zapped him off. And before I knew it, we were at Timmy's house… well, the version of Timmy's house on Planet Crocker, which seemed to be nothing more than a large cardboard box.

Mr. and Mrs. Turner immediately sat up when they saw Crocker. "Our lord and master—"

ZAP!

It pained me to see Timmy's parents—while on the idiotic side, relatively caring parents nonetheless—to be trapped, powerless and frightened, in a huge forcefield… much like Cosmo and I were. "As much as I like having my peons bow to me, I have another use for you two right now—BAIT!" Crocker laughed insanely.

Timmy burst through the door, gasping when he saw his parents trapped. "MOM! DAD! Leave them alone!" he hollered at Crocker.

Crocker fumed at Timmy. "You're done giving me orders, Turner! Now surrender for I'll turn your parents into ice sculptures and transport them to the SUN!"

My eyes widened. It was either the loss of the free world of the loss of his parents. But I knew what Timmy would pick. He would do just what I had done—surrender the entire planet's free will to save the ones he loved.

"I… I… I surrender," he finally murmured, completely defeated.

"Excellent! I win!" crowed Crocker. "I like it when I win. But do you know what I like better? I like it when other people…" He pointed us at Timmy and zapped again—more pain, I hardly noticed it—"LOSE!"

"WAIT!" cried Timmy. "Before you waste me, can I at least have one last word with my mom and dad?"

"Why should I allow that?" Crocker scoffed.

"Well…" Timmy thought quickly. "All the great evil villains grant last requests. Don't you want to be a great evil villain?"

"Well, I've always been an overachiever. Why settle for villain when I can be a GREAT evil villain? Very well, but make it quick!" He released Mr. and Mrs. Turner from their bubble.

"I must've skipped that chapter," he said aside to me.

Cosmo was nearly plastered on the side of the glass ball, looking like he was inches from death. I held his hand and stroked it. "Cosmo…" I whispered. I couldn't think of anything to say to him.

He turned and looked up at me, blinking through his tears. "Wanda… it hurts so much… how did you stand it? Not just the hurt from him using our magic, but what he's doing with it to Timmy!"

"I… I didn't," I said quietly. I turned and looked at Timmy, hearing what he was saying to his parents.

"…I love you too," he was saying. "And over the years, I've told my share of lies." He looked directly at Cosmo and me. We both grinned modestly and hid our wands behind our backs.

"You see those two creatures floating in Crocker's scepter?" he said, very calmly.

I shook my head. No, Timmy, what are you doing? Cosmo looked disbelieving too.

"Hey!" cried Mrs. Turner. "They have the same eyes as your goldfish!"

"And the same eyes as your notebooks!" cried Mr. Turner.

"And the same eyes as your balloons!" added Mrs. Turner.

"In fact, they look like a lot of stuff you have!" said Mr. Turner.

"You know why?" asked Timmy quietly. "Because their names… are Cosmo… and Wanda…"

"Timmy, NO!" Cosmo and I cried together, not believing our ears.

"…and they're my FAIRY GODPARENTS!" Timmy finished forcefully.

"I knew it all along!" laughed Crocker. "I was right! You do have fairies… who I have now!" He laughed for about the hundredth time that day.

Timmy's parents looked shocked. "You mean all this time you had magical fairy godparents that granted your every wish?" his mom asked.

"And I still have to work my paws to the bone to scrape out a meager existence in a middle class neighborhood?" his dad cried in disbelief.

"Well," said Timmy matter-of-factly, "there's rules as to what I can and can't do with them—"

"And you just broke the biggest one!" cried Cosmo.

"When you reveal our existence, we have to go away forever!" I reminded him.

"WHAT!" yelped Crocker.

And then I understood.

"That's the point!" cried Timmy.

Right after he said that, Da Rules appeared very dramatically and opened up… the glass ball that Cosmo and I were trapped in shattered from the force of it pulling us to it. I knew what had to be done… but I didn't want to accept it. Cosmo grabbed furiously onto the scepter, and I grabbed onto him.

"But we don't wanna go away forever!" Cosmo wailed.

"We love you!" I cried.

"I love you too," said Timmy, sadly, "and that's why I had to tell the truth because… _the truth will set you free!_"

Cosmo couldn't hold on anymore, and before I knew it, we were both tumbling into the depths of Da Rules…

…and were deposited in Fairy World.

Fairy World was a mess. The fairies were all scrambled, and it looked like no one was allowed to leave—although thousands of fairies were peeping over the edge, trying to get a good look at the destruction of the earth.

Cosmo grabbed me and started to wail.

"Why did he have to tell?" he bawled.

"Crocker doesn't have us anymore," I said softly. "He's powerless without us. Timmy… did what he had to, to save the world. Unlike me."

Cosmo looked at me quizzically. "What do you mean?"

"I… I could have stopped Crocker from using me… but I was too worried about you and Timmy to risk it…"

"I don't understand," said Cosmo, blinking. "Then again, I rarely do, but…"

"Cosmo," I said, with a calmness that surprised me, "he wouldn't have been able to use my magic if I was dead."

He gasped. "You were going to _kill yourself_!"

"…Yes, I was, but—"

And suddenly, we were back at Timmy's house. I stared at Timmy, who gave me a knowing smile… and then I saw a spat-out piece of the magic muffin on the ground in front of him.

"Wow, that was quick!" cried Cosmo.

…………

Timmy wished that the whole world was back to normal… and Cosmo and I very happily granted it.

But one thing _wasn't _normal—my body. It still racked with the pain of my imprisonment from Crocker… and I was exhausted. Being pregnant probably didn't help matters.

So that night, when Timmy hopped into bed, I couldn't have been more thankful to poof myself into the fishbowl and sink into bed… but that would have to wait.

For right when Cosmo and I poofed into our castle, Cosmo grabbed me by the shoulders and pinned me to the bed, his eyes wide with shock. "You were going to _kill yourself_!" he shouted again.

"Cosmo," I gasped, "he was using my magic for terrible things, and I didn't want that! And he wouldn't have been able to do that if I was dead!"

"But…" Cosmo looked at me, his brimming with protective, burning love. If he hadn't been pinning me to the bed, I would have hugged him. "But why didn't you, then? I mean, I'm glad you didn't, but—"

I smiled at him, one of those smiles of pure love and understanding. "Because he said that if I killed myself, he'd just go get another fairy. He said he'd capture you. I didn't want you to go through the pain that I did."

He drew in his breath, looking and sounding on the verge of tears. Releasing my shoulders, he pulled me up into a fierce hug, and I returned it… everything seemed alright when he was holding me in his arms… I can't think of a place I'd rather be.

"You went through all that pain… because of _me_?" He sounded incredulous.

"So did you," I reminded him. "And Cosmo… I'm so sorry for yelling at you… you only did what I would have done, if you had been the one captured. I…" I pulled enough away from him to look him in the eyes. He looked back at me, almost helplessly, but with so much love for me that I could hardly find my voice. "I'm so thankful for you, sweetheart." My mind went numb as I remembered, as I often did, how close I was, on so many occasions, to leaving Cosmo… how could I ever do that now… I love him so much, he's my whole world…

I felt a kick in my stomach. And our baby. Pretty soon, it would be my whole world too.

We kissed as if it was our first kiss… Cosmo pulled away, and nestled his head in my chest. "He _hurt _you," he whispered, wrapping his arms around my waist.

"I'm alright now…" I ran my fingers through his messy hair… and I wouldn't have his hair any other way. "Because you're here."

"I love you…" his voice was rather faint. I recognized that in an instant.

I lay down on the bed, pulling him with me. Just as I knew, he was asleep. Seems he was just as exhausted as I was.

"Sweet dreams, darling," I whispered. With one flick of my wand, I turned out the lights.


End file.
